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Can a Morning Person become an Evening Runner?

Good Afternoon Fellow New Runners!

Confession time: I am a morning person. My internal clock is set for 6am and I wake up ready to go. The morning is when I am most energized and ready to attack the day. It is the time of day when most of the items on my to do list are checked off. Morning is absolutely when I run.

This isn’t quite how I look when I wake up, but close..

So what is a morning girl to do when she can’t run in the mornings? My husband recently got a new schedule at work, one that requires him to be at work in the middle of the night and stay there until the early afternoon. With a 2 year old at home, my morning runs went from a given to a luxury.

Yep, we love it!

Sure I can put her in the jogging stroller, but by the time we grab her breakfast, the 30 different toys she swears she needs for a 30 minute outing and we go potty 5 times I’m already exhausted and I haven’t even gotten out the door.

I can go for a run when my husband gets home from work. Except that I live in Florida and as of noon today it is already 90 degrees…in the shade.

Really the only good time for me to run is my least likely time of the day to get anything accomplished…evening. Most evenings I’m too exhausted to even turn on the computer, let alone go for a run. However one day last week, I decided I would give it a try.

This isn’t me (I don’t need to wear pants to run in the Florida summer heat!)

After my daughter went to bed and my husband fell asleep, around 8pm, I left the house. It was still warm but with the sun setting it wasn’t too bad. The first few steps were awkward and yep, the first people I saw I said “Good Morning” (force of habit). But you know what, it was pretty darn fun! It was great to see so many neighbors out and about. It was fun to see kids playing and see how pretty the neighborhood looks in the light. Once I got home, I had a glorious 30 minutes of alone time to stretch and cool down and after a shower and my usual evening tea, I was actually ready for bed! It was awesome!

In short, this morning girl really loved her evening run. Even though I’ll miss my morning runs (I still plan on doing my long runs in the morning) it was a really fun way to wind down and end the day. I highly recommend trying to run at a different time of the day than you usually do. You might really love it!